that the family would some day be able to fill the intervals
satisfactorily connecting Sir John Lanier with the musicians of the court
have not been realized, nor has any satisfactory study been made
of the coming of the Laniers to America. The best evidence of the connection
between the two families is found in a deed recorded in Prince County, Va.,
May 14, 1728, from Nicholas Lanier to Holmes Boisseau --
the name Nicholas being significant. It is certain that Thomas Lanier,
along with a large number of other Huguenots, settled in Virginia
in the early years of the eighteenth century at Manakin-town,
some twenty miles from Richmond. Some of these Huguenots,
notably the Moncures, the Maurys, the Latanes, and the Flournoys,
became connected with historic families of Virginia. There was a tradition
in the Lanier family as well as in the Washington family,
that Thomas Lanier married an aunt of George Washington,
but this has been proved to be untrue.* The Laniers were related by marriage
to the Washingtons of Surry County. They established themselves
in the middle of the eighteenth century in Brunswick and Lunenburg counties
of Virginia, as prosperous planters; they did not, however,
rank either in dignity or in wealth with the older gentry of Virginia.
In a letter written in 1877 Lanier gives in full the various branches
of the Lanier family as they separated from this point and went into
all parts of the United States. One branch joined the pioneers
who went up through Tennessee into Kentucky and thence to Indiana.
The most famous of these was Mr. J. F. D. Lanier, who played a prominent part
in the development of the railroad system of the West,
and at the time of the Civil War had become one of the leading bankers
in New York city. He was a financial adviser of President Lincoln,
and represented the government abroad in some important transactions.
He was of genuine help to Sidney Lanier at critical times
in the latter's life. His son, Mr. Charles Lanier, now a banker of New York,